Clark Hoyt and the Washington Merry-Go-Round

By: Joe Strupp On the morning of March 13, on a train heading south somewhere between Trenton, N.J., and Philadelphia, my cell phone rang. Clark Hoyt, whom I was scheduled to interview in a few hours, was on the other end, sounding a bit overwhelmed. "Joe?" he asked, as the landscape of South Jersey farms whisked by. "This may not be the best day to come down."

This turned out to be an understatement. Just hours earlier, official word arrived that The McClatchy Co. was indeed buying Hoyt's parent company, Knight Ridder. That afternoon, McClatchy editors were coming in, the Knight Ridder staff needed some guidance, and Hoyt had just learned that by midsummer he would no longer be running the bureau as Washington editor.

After nearly seven years shepherding the growing newsroom at 12th and G streets -- through award-winning war coverage, hurricane reporting, and Washington scoops -- Hoyt had been told he would be replaced by David Westphal, the veteran McClatchy D.C. bureau chief. McClatchy's 15-person bureau would merge with Knight Ridder's much larger staff of more than 100 editors, regional reporters, foreign correspondents, and the Knight Ridder Tribune Information Service.

For now, Hoyt's thoughts were not on his own future, but rather on making sure his staffers got the complete story on the sale, received answers to the inevitable job concerns, and covered some news in between. "It is not a problem if you want to come by," he said, as the southbound train rumbled past a warehouse complex. "But I may not be able to see you until later, or tomorrow."

As the day wore on, Hoyt's hopes for a calm afternoon vanished. McClatchy Vice President/ News Howard Weaver arrived later, telling the newsroom that the new owners valued their work highly and planned to keep them on. He said McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt would visit them later in the week.

"It has the potential to be a good thing," observed William Douglas, a White House correspondent and three-year bureau employee who chatted at his cubicle, one of many that populate the expansive 10th-floor operation. "There are going to be changes, but nobody knows what they are going to be." Fellow scribe Chris Adams, a member of the investigative team, expressed some worries. "I don't know if McClatchy will want to continue" the bureau's investigative efforts, he said. "They have not put their resources behind a national news operation in the past."

Throughout the day as more details about the sale emerged -- including McClatchy's plans to resell 12 of the Knight Ridder papers and Westphal's hints that he would like to see more regional reporting and Web content from the bureau -- Hoyt's staffers continued to speculate about the future. The bureau's star has risen considerably during the past few years, mainly the result of consistent reports questioning U.S. intelligence before the Iraq war, and then its insightful coverage of the conflict since 2003. The results are showing. Last month, the Overseas Press Club presented its prestigious Hal Boyle Award to KR's Baghdad bureau veterans Hannah Allam, Tom Lasseter, and the late Yasser Salihee.

The Washington reporters say they have been able to put more time and resources into special projects and sometimes costly probing. Economics reporter Kevin Hall says the staff's mission has been infused with "this vision of high-altitude reporting" by Hoyt and bureau chief John Walcott. "Taking a step back, taking an extra day to explain things more."

Ask nearly anyone at the bureau who is behind the improvements and broader outlook, and the credit almost always goes to the man at the top. "Hoyt is a terrific inside player in the organization," congressional correspondent Jim Kuhnhenn observed over drinks at Butterfield 9, an upscale eatery just blocks from the office. "Coordinating the role the bureau plays. The profile has grown, the name is more well known." He cited one example of its increased clout: John Kerry's accessibility on the campaign trail in 2004. "Other than The New York Times and Washington Post, I got the most interviews with Kerry," he noted.

White House correspondent Ron Hutcheson also credits Hoyt with leading the way. "It is good management," he said, sipping a cocktail at the bar. "Every bureau in Washington struggles with striking a balance between inside and outside the beltway. Hoyt had the big picture."

A history of reporting

Slightly more than 24 hours had passed since Hoyt learned his company would be sold to McClatchy, his bureau would be taken away from him, and his 38 years with Knight Ridder would soon be over. Still, the 63-year-old was quick to credit his parent company and its reporters with allowing him to shape the bureau into what it is today.

"It was a corporate decision to cover 9/11 [and its aftermath] as a team, not as individual papers," he said over lunch across the street from the bureau. "We pushed for it and there was resistance at the beginning. But when people saw results, there was a pretty wide embrace within the company."

Kathleen Carroll, executive editor of the Associated Press, spent six years in the Knight Ridder Washington bureau as both news editor and bureau chief before taking the AP helm in 2002. During that time, Hoyt pushed for scoops but also expanded coverage. "He is a Washington rat," Carroll said. "He loves stories, breaking news and has a real infectious enthusiasm and a smart, sophisticated approach for marshalling resources for good stories."

Hoyt was concerned the new ownership might cut back or even eliminate his staff, given that it produces no income and costs plenty. "My biggest worry was that someone wouldn't want to keep the bureau," he admitted. "I'm very proud of what we did. It has been a place with a long tradition of good journalism."

He praised McClatchy for maintaining a pro-journalism approach at both the newspapers and its bureau, noting, "They are way too smart to screw things up." He added that McClatchy's desire for strong regional reporting does not have to mean diminishing the national coverage he helped build: "I don't think it is either/or."

Speaking of traditions, Hoyt has enjoyed a long one himself as a company man -- and he has no intention of calling it quits after he leaves the bureau. "I'll do something," he vowed.

Hoyt's career dates back to before there was a Knight Ridder, first joining Knight Newspapers in 1968 as a reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Since then, he has held jobs ranging from editor of The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle to corporate vice president for news at Knight Ridder. "I've been able to have a full career in one company," he said. "It means everything to me. I also have been able to have many opportunities."

A native of Providence, R.I., Hoyt was the youngest son of Charles and Maude Hoyt. His father, a career Navy officer, served in the South Pacific in World War II and later became a Navy dentist. His mother was a registered nurse.

During the first 10 years of Hoyt's life, his father's military assignments moved him around the country, from Los Gatos, Calif., to Key West, Fla. While in Hawaii, Hoyt got his first taste of journalism at age 8 when he joined his only brother, Charles, in a neighborhood newspaper venture. The duo published "The Maloalop Snoop," which they dutifully filled with happenings on their block and passed out to neighbors. "We reported things like whose dog left a calling card on whose lawn," Hoyt recalled. "Big breaking stuff. It was just fun being nosy."

Hoyt later attended the prestigious Hill School in Pottstown, Pa., striking up a friendship with another would-be newshound, Norman Pearlstine. He recalls the pair working together on the school paper and starting a literary magazine. "I think he was more serious than me," Hoyt said of the man who would become editor in chief of Time magazine.

After high school Hoyt attended Columbia University, majoring in English, and said he gave serious thought to the foreign service as he possessed a strong interest in Latin America: "Before I was born my father was stationed at Guantanamo and I remember his stories of living there."

His journey to diplomacy began with a 1964 internship in the Washington office of Sen. George Smathers, a Florida Democrat who later gave Hoyt a job as a speechwriter and researcher. In 1966, the news bug bit again when Hoyt got a reporting job with The Ledger in Lakeland, Fla., where he says he "took a huge pay cut." The Ledger's editor, a former Washington, D.C., correspondent for The Miami Herald, remembered Hoyt during their time together on Capitol Hill and piqued the latter's news interest.

His first Florida story: covering a KKK turkey shoot. "I forgot to wind the camera and I double-exposed everything," Hoyt recalled. "One picture came out, of the KKK flag and American flag together." He later uncovered wrongdoing by a local slum lord who pulled a gun when Hoyt went to confront him with allegations. "He just had it in his hand, but the message was clear," he said. During his time at the Ledger he also got married, to the paper's assistant women's editor, Jane Hauser.

In 1967, a job opened with the Detroit Free Press but Hoyt had to hold off for several months when the Motown paper went on strike. He returned briefly to his political life, serving in the interim as press secretary for former Florida Gov. LeRoy Collins during his unsuccessful 1968 U.S. Senate campaign. When the strike ended, Hoyt went to Detroit.

From 1968 to 1970, he dove into political coverage during what he called a "fascinating time in politics." Colorful characters like former Michigan Gov. George Romney and U.S. Sen. Phil Hart showed the young journalist how intriguing such a beat could be. "It was my first time out on the campaign trail with candidates," he said of the campaign by Romney's wife, Lenore, who lost a bid for the Senate in 1970. "It was often me, the press secretary, and the candidate out driving. You had real access."

One such incident brought Hoyt a bit too close to reality when he was on a chartered plane with Lenore Romney for a short flight across Michigan and the scheduled pilot never showed up. When the owner of the plane took the controls, Hoyt was concerned. "It became apparent quickly he barely knew how to fly," Hoyt explained. "He couldn't even work the radio. That was a part of campaigning I did not miss -- small planes."

But Hoyt said he does miss the close connections reporters had with candidates in those days, saying today's election coverage is missing the intimate stories with politicians. "Everything is so much more organized and packaged on their part," the editor recalled. "Staying on message. It feels to me that a lot of spontaneity has gone out of it."

After two years in Detroit, Hoyt returned to D.C. as Washington correspondent for the Miami Herald from 1970 to 1973 and then became a national correspondent for Knight Newspapers, a post he held until 1976. Among his memories: being in the courtroom when the Watergate burglars were arraigned on June 17, 1972. Sitting several rows behind a young Bob Woodward, Hoyt could not hear burglar James McCord's famous revelation of his past ties to the CIA, an admission that sparked Woodward's in-depth investigation. "I was in the back of the room," he mused. "The acoustics were terrible."

Shocking developments

But Hoyt soon had a scoop of his own. Just weeks later, he broke the story of Democratic vice presidential nominee Thomas Eagleton's past treatment for depression that included electroshock therapy. The revelation drove Eagleton, then a Missouri senator, from the vice presidential slot under George McGovern and won Hoyt a Pulitzer.

Hoyt had been covering the Democratic National Convention in Miami and was due for a vacation when editors sent him to Missouri to dig up everything he could on Eagleton, who had just been nominated.

"While I was in the air flying to St. Louis, an anonymous caller called the Detroit Free Press," Hoyt recalled. The tip: Eagleton had received treatment for depression, including shock therapy. Hoyt landed in St. Louis and immediately went to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to look through clips on Eagleton. He said he found weeks of gaps in the paper without Eagleton news, "and something about a possible drinking problem." He also discovered reports of a full physical at the city's Mayo Clinic.

Further reporting revealed the name of a doctor who had treated Eagleton, and even a date and place where the shock therapy was administered. Hoyt drove to the doctor's home and asked if the medical information was correct.

The response? A slammed door. "That's when I knew it was true, but we still had a heck of a problem getting it into the paper."

Hoyt then phoned Knight Ridder's D.C. bureau chief Robert Boyd, and the two eventually chose to confront Eagleton with the information in person. Resting up after the convention, Eagleton and McGovern were in South Dakota at a log cabin resort preparing for the upcoming campaign. The reporter and editor flew there and told campaign manager Frank Mankiewicz what they had. The news prompted a sit-down between the candidates and top campaign staffers as Boyd and Hoyt paced outside waiting.

Eventually, Eagleton decided to hold a surprise press conference and reveal his secret. He also gave Hoyt an exclusive interview during his car ride to the Rapid City, S.D., airport immediately afterward. "He looked quite miserable," Hoyt added. Although he felt badly that Eagleton eventually had to leave the ticket, Hoyt was of the opinion that disclosing such serious information was important. "I never had any doubts," he said. "I felt bad for him on a human level. But when you are talking about someone who is going to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, that is something that should be reviewed."

Hoyt was appointed news editor of the D.C. bureau from 1976 to 1977, then became business editor back in Detroit from 1977 to 1979. When the Republican National Convention came to the Motor City in 1980, Hoyt was put in charge of coverage, which was disrupted when the paper's Teamster-led drivers staged a wildcat strike the week of the event. In 1981, he assumed the post of assistant to Free Press Executive Editor David Lawrence, and later left to become managing editor of The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle, a post he held until 1984.

"I learned a lot about people and life I didn't know before," Hoyt said of his time in Kansas farm country. "That wheat harvest time dominates life, and the town is awake at 2 a.m."

Hoyt returned to the Washington bureau once more in 1985 as news editor, and as bureau chief in 1987. The following year he married a second time, to Linda Kauss, who now works as a deputy managing editor at USA Today. In 1993 Hoyt moved to Miami to become vice president of news for Knight Ridder, and remained there for five years. "It was a fascinating challenge," he recalled. "You learn much more about the business."

However, it was a strain on his marriage, as Hoyt and Kauss saw each other only on weekends. When Knight Ridder relocated its headquarters to San Jose in 1998, he realized that commute would be too much to bear and arranged another transfer to the D.C. bureau as Washington editor in 1999.

Bowing out gracefully

Back in his corner office, which he will relinquish in a matter of months, Hoyt remains positive but nostalgic. On his desk are the usual items, books, and paperwork, and on the wall hangs a large framed collection of press passes and sports ticket stubs -- some dating back more than 30 years. Among the souvenirs are a 1972 Republican Convention credential and a ticket to Game 7 of the 1997 World Series.

Asked if he is bitter or upset about losing his job and seeing his longtime company dismantled, Hoyt offered only positive responses. "Knight Ridder is ending," he said bluntly. "It is the end of the company as it came together during all of those years." When asked to name his best job during nearly 40 years with the chain, he replied diplomatically, "Just about everything I have done has been the best job I've had up until then. Each one has had something special about it."

After his consulting job with McClatchy is finished within the next year or so, Hoyt has no set plans other than rebuilding a 1940 Ford Deluxe Coupe he has had for years, and maybe writing a few books. But he stressed that he wants to continue working: "I have no intention of retiring in the near future."

When questioned if becoming an editor elsewhere is possible, Hoyt said such a move is possible but not likely: "I am at a stage where I am doubtful I would, but I wouldn't close the door on anything." On his forced departure, he is practical. "It is very understandable that they want their own person," he said of incoming editor Westphal, "who is a very good person to run the operation."

Westphal, the 58-year-old McClatchy bureau chief who has been in the D.C. office for more than 10 years, returned the compliment, saying the Knight Ridder bureau under Hoyt "has been a center of journalistic excellence."

Meet the new boss

Moving forward, Westphal will undoubtedly make some changes and has already indicated he wants more Web activity from the bureau, and likely more regional reporting. His current McClatchy reporting staff, which has grown from seven reporters to 11 since 1995, has only three national correspondents. The remainder keep tightly focused on writing for their hometown papers. "It is a regional-reporting bureau," Westphal stressed during an interview in his fourth-floor office at the National Press Building just one day after his takeover was announced. "We believe in reporting in a way that is knowledgeable of Washington, but very close to the hometown."

He pointed to the way his bureau and McClatchy's Modesto (Calif.) Bee broke the story of police investigating Congressman Gary Condit in 2001 as part of the search for former intern Chandra Levy. "The story had many tentacles in both places," said Westphal. "Fundamental to the story was the hometown political reaction." Levy was eventually found dead in a D.C. park, but Condit was never linked to the murder.

Although Westphal has spent more than a decade in D.C., the majority of his news background is middle America. An Iowa native, he started at the former Cedar Falls (Iowa) Record, then spent 17 years at the Des Moines Register, rising to the job of managing editor before leaving in 1995 to head the Washington office. Des Moines is also where he met his wife, longtime journalist Geneva Overholser, who was his boss for many years and is now the Curtis B. Hurley Chair in Public Affairs Reporting at the University of Missouri School of Journalism's Washington bureau. The couple has three children from previous marriages.

A dead ringer for author George Plimpton, Westphal towers over most in the newsroom at well over 6 feet, but speaks in a quiet, conversational style. His small office overlooking busy F Street includes decorations ranging from a photo of a John Deere tractor to a framed portrait of jazz greats in Harlem. "I come from a strong regional-reporting background and I will want that to continue," he said. "There are a fair number of Knight Ridder papers that do not have anyone representing them [in Washington]. That will have to be resolved."

Staffers say he mixes an aggressive approach with careful leadership. "He is extremely calm, organized, and not hard to read," commented Margaret Talev, a national correspondent who previously worked for the Los Angeles Times and in McClatchy's Sacramento, Calif., bureau. "He is a thoughtful editor."

Although Talev is one of only three national reporters on staff, she said Westphal does not force them to cover every D.C. story the bigger newsrooms require. "Our approach has not been to bite on every daily that gets cable news attention," she explained during a conversation in her small office. "We don't always write a daily if Bush gives a speech."

Talev mentioned a 2005 story she wrote comparing the Iraq War with Vietnam that required about 10 days of reporting. "I was under very little pressure to do any dailies during that time," she noted. James Rosen, who came to the McClatchy bureau in 1995 as the D.C. correspondent for The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., and became its national political correspondent in 2000, confirmed Westphal's regional approach: "Our newspapers do not want to follow the bill through the process. Unless it is a major player from one of our states."

Back at 12th and G streets, Knight Ridder staffers remain hopeful, seeking to paint the McClatchy buyout as a positive way to improve on their already prominent successes. Joe Galloway, the veteran Knight Ridder military affairs writer who is stepping down in June, observed, "McClatchy has always had a good reputation. They are the best of the lot."

Hutcheson, who is staying on as White House correspondent, added, "Their intention is to make a powerhouse bureau. Their challenge is to make McClatchy a powerhouse. It is doable."